It's a Gift - {Eyes Roll}

It's a gift. Maybe it's one our teenagers feel they could do without, but it's one I freely give - unlike time on video games which is only grudgingly granted.

I can take anything, anything, and turn it into an opportunity to lecture, err learn. We're driving down the road, and I point out another driver's flaws (trust me, I point out my own, theirs, and hubby's too - I may want to work on that side seat driving). A song comes on, and I can come up with a way to discuss the lyrics and what they really mean (except "Brown Sugar" by the Rolling Stones - I am NOT explaining to them that I didn't get that until I was in my 30's. I'm already in the stupid zone - they are teenagers.). And of course, you can't turn on the news or pick up a magazine or newspaper without the opportunities provided by Bieber, Cyrus, Kardashian, the Russians, politicians of any stripe...it's a constant.

Methinks I may be overdoing it, but one is a sophomore, and the other one is a junior, and I feel like I'm racing an hourglass set at fast.

So here's an early commencement lecture, and maybe I'll try to relax today, and just enjoy them - which is my advice to me.

Don't stay stuck - I'm talking driving. People stack up in the left lane or in the right lane. Use a signal, move to the left to pass, and move back to the right. There are exceptions - understand them. Come to think of it - it does work on politics, too. Look at each issue individually, decide, and make the appropriate moves. Don't stay stuck, not when driving, or when thinking.

Never follow the maddening crowd. It's not necessary to have the same opinions to have a friendship, and if it is, then that's not a friendship.

Become addicted - to learning, to reading, to listening, to music. If you nurture an addiction to these, then you won't need an addiction to drink, drugs, food, smokes to handle the stress of life. Nothing handles stress better then to sit, and listen to nature, sit, and love a pet, and listen to their appreciation of you, and your time, sit, and listen to God, sit, and listen to the words written in a well-written book, sit and listen to an incredibly well-crafted piece of music. There is a peace, you can find it.

When in doubt, show kindness. Sometimes kindness is an act, and sometimes it's not acting in anger. You'll figure it out.

Never decide someone is beneath you. When you do, you've just placed yourself beneath them. The People of Wal-Mart website isn't funny. It's sad. The homeless are sad. We never know the circumstances of someone else's life. The wealthy person who has it all could have had the most horrific childhood. 

Never assume someone is better then you. You are you. Be the best you possible. Never let someone else's opinion of you determine your own opinion of you. 

Always remember - you are loved. Oh, and please use your turn-signal.

Fifteen, and Miles to Go Before We Rest

Yesterday was my last day as the mother of a fourteen year old. Today my baby turns fifteen - technically at 6:18 this evening, but try and tell him that -  and as any mother will tell you - it's amazing how the years fly by. It seems just yesterday that he was born. For that matter I often feel like a teenager myself.

He was always an easy baby - the one that you could lay down wide awake, and he would go to sleep. I know it sounds like a fairy tale or a reinvention, but it really was that way. Even now, he's not a terribly difficult teenager. He can cop an attitude, but it usually doesn't last too long. Though I do embarrass him at frequent intervals - particularly my disco dancing (he needs to be grateful that I can't still fit into the satin pants). 

He has some impressive accomplishments, and while I'm tempted to brag on them, the reality is that some kids just get it, and some kids are harder to raise. I get that completely, and I don't think we're anywhere near done with lessons, because accomplishments aren't what will provide love - character is. So a few quotes for my two teenagers, and if you have any words of wisdom - feel free to share:

"I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university." Albert Einstein

"Where there is love, there is life." Mahatma Gandhi

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." George Bernard Shaw

"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance." Confucious


And your favorite quote = "Who is John Galt?" Ayn Rand

Happy Birthday!!

Back Seat Conversations in May

I’m in one of those moods. Menopause does that to you or so I’ve heard. I just feel like listing some pet peeves. It makes you feel all deliciously superior especially when done with no makeup on and no one around to point out all your own faults – in other words the cat is sleeping and the dog is fed, the kids at school and the hubby gone to his job.

So here goes:

Must every establishment I frequent now ask me if I want to contribute one dollar to their chosen cause du jour? Cause I don’t want to. So I don’t sound as Ebenezer as all that, I need to say that we contribute to charity both financially and time wise (well my time and hubby’s hard earned financials). I have no overwhelming desire to make some big company look better by giving a dollar here and a dollar there and I resent being asked when I just came in to pick up some lousy poster board for the kids projects. So stop asking me already. Put a sign up there, I’ll read it and let me tell you. Cause I can, if I want to.

When did yellow become the new green? I ask because it seems that rarely does a day pass that I don’t see someone run a light. Cause if you approach it at the speed of light and it’s yellow, then faster than the speed of light it becomes RED. To get to the kids high school I have to pass over a major interstate. And apparently everyone is just dying to get on that interstate cause they don’t stop for nothing. But as I keep explaining in colorful language to my 15 year old, who will be driving soon, we hope, their failure to stop means one day they just might die. So either recognize your colors or get a freakin’ helicopter so you can fly over top of the rest of us who don’t want to die.

Speaking of driving, one more constant lecture point that I keep giving to my teenagers – put up your freakin’ phone and drive, uhh, bless your hearts.  Invariably if I pass someone who is driving like an idiot I can glance over and see your phone. It’s either your phone or you bought one earring off of somebody like Snookie or whatever her name is. I know driving can be boring, but I’m pretty dang sure that most of us have nothing so pressing that we need to be on the phone AT THAT EXACT MOMENT. Of course that’s easy for me to say – I relish some peace and quiet.

That’s just today’s list. Feel free to check with me tomorrow. Cause my mood is ever changing – just like those traffic lights y’all keep ignoring.

Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to You…

Today is our oldest son’s FIFTEENTH birthday. How the devil did that happen? How can my darling baby boy possibly be old enough for a driver’s permit and all that entails? Now I’m not gonna sit here and blow some smoke at you and pretend it’s all been roses raising the child. He’s one hardheaded, determined, questioning personality who gets to hit up against his equally stubborn, determined, and demanding Momma (genetics, I hear you calling my name – or put another way, when my Momma said, “you’ll understand one day”, I think she was cursing, err blessing my future progeny). We’ve had a ride including getting correct diagnoses of a couple of conditions. And honestly I wouldn’t trade a single moment.

My older son and my goddaughter go for a "ride".

My children have taught me to love with a deepness and unselfishness that I never knew I was capable of. I have gotten up in the middle of the night and rushed to an ER. I have been insulted and questioned and blamed. I have also been cuddled and kissed and reached for, and there is nothing like parenthood to put all the crap of life totally in perspective. 

Jackie Kennedy once said, “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.” Well, at only 15, we still have miles to go. But my clarinet playing, tender-hearted, Xbox-adoring, stubborn son who is such an individual and already quite comfortable in his own skin makes me proud. Happy Birthday, my baby…and you can’t have my keys yet.

'Tis the Season of the Witch....

Well, summer break has officially started and I have decided that this summer deserves a nickname all its own. Therefore welcome to the Season of the Witch (with many apologies to Donovan for his cool song does deserve better). See I will be imposing rules and chores, explaining responsibility, and requiring duties at a rapid pace and I'm NOT talking about me here. I have two teenagers, one of whom will be deemed old enough to drive by the end of the summer. So somebody explain to me why he's not old enough to drive the weed eater?

Now please don't think that I haven't been doing this all along. They've always had "age appropriate" chores. But I do find myself pushing more and more their way and noticing that I seem to (according to them...but who really trusts what a teenager has to say about work or pleasure) make them do more than some of their peers. Well, too bad for my kids, I say. There simply is no reason that kids who are taller and stronger than me should sit inside in that glorious invention called air conditioning, while I tackle the horror that is our yard. Same thing for the household chores. I'm not raising royalty here.

I just finished reading a Sookie Stackhouse book, "Dead in the Family",  (the book series that True Blood was created from). In this particular one, Alexei, the Russian Tsarevich who was brutally murdered in 1918, had been turned into a vampire. He was a pretty bad vampire and part of the reasoning is that he had been so pampered in real life that he had a very hard time understanding an inability to do what he wants when he wants it. Which sounds chillingly like my teenagers. So in the interest of the future world order...or maybe just so any future in-laws won't constantly be blaming me...'tis the Season of the Witch. Now they better go pick up my broom and start using it...